Privacy notice

Traffic, Transport & Parking: engagement with our communities

The London Borough of Hounslow is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. Through this Privacy Notice we have sought to be as transparent as possible and fully explain how your personal data is held and processed.

This privacy notice tells you what to expect when the Council collects your personal information and communicates with you, and it applies to the community engagement activity carried out by the Traffic, Transport and Parking team (TTP) including but not limited to:

  • email, phone, on-line (except for consultations/surveys completed via the Council’s Engagement HQ Platform which are covered under the Privacy Notice at:  https://talk.hounslow.gov.uk/privacy), and in-person contact relating to engagement, consultations, and scheme proposals;
  • in-person and online stakeholder meetings and drop-in events;
  • enquiries and requests submitted to the team during the course of engagement on issues relating to Traffic Management, Parking Management, Development Management, Transport Planning and road safety within the borough.

It also applies to engagement literature produced by the team and covers third party consultants instructed to work on our behalf on engagement services.

A link to this Privacy Notice will be included in all the correspondence we send out to stakeholders, residents, community groups and businesses when promoting engagement events, consultations, seeking feedback or providing updates on project outcomes.

When TTP reach out to communities by email, we make use of the stored email addresses from our stakeholder database; this could also be publicly available information obtained from organisations’ websites.

Recipients can ‘opt out’ from communications at any time by emailing us at: TTPEngagement@hounslow.gov.uk to request they opt out or ‘unsubscribe’ and their details will be removed from the list.

The London Borough of Hounslow as Data Controller is responsible for collecting and processing information required for statutory reasons under the Traffic Management Act 2004 (and associated regulations), the London Local Authorities Act and Transport for London Act 2003 (and associated regulations).

Processing in this context means the organisation, retrieval, consultation, use and deletion or destruction of information and its disclosure to other necessary agencies.

If you have any questions about this privacy notice, or any concerns about how we process your data, please contact the TTP team via TTPEngagement@hounslow.gov.uk

What type of information we have

As a busy section of the Council, the TTP team carry out engagement activities with our local communities on a range of related issues. To do this effectively, it is necessary for the TTP team to collect and hold some personal information about you.

The information we collect may be via engagement activities such as emails; telephone calls; on-line and face-to-face meetings with residents; drop-in sessions. The data we gather from all sources could include:

  • name
  • address
  • email address
  • telephone number
  • Special Category data including age, sex, racial or ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disabilities, religion, health and languages.

Some examples of when we collect this information could include:

  • When gathering views on proposals or services
  • To improve our understanding of community needs, and to help improve the services we deliver.

 

How do we get your information?

  • TTP will invite community groups and other stakeholders to participate in engagement events, consultations, or to provide feedback on services via email. These email addresses are from our stakeholder database or are publicly available information obtained from organisations’ websites.
  • Face to face meetings or events to seek feedback on, or promote a service, an initiative or a proposal.
  • We may also collect your name and email address when you sign up to an online event via an Eventbrite form. We will use this information for communications purposes, to provide you with information about the events, to keep you updated about the project outcomes or to inform you about related engagement events in the future. You can opt-out of communications at any time by emailing us at: TTPEngagement@hounslow.gov.uk.

Most of the personal information we process is provided to us directly by you for one of the following reasons:

  • When providing feedback on TTP services; initiatives and proposals, and to help the team develop projects. This could be by email; letter, over the phone or in person at an engagement event or workshop.

TTP may take photographs of events, at which point you will alerted to this and given the opportunity to refuse to be included in the photograph. 

 

Our lawful basis for processing your information:

We process personal data under the following GDPR:

Article 6 (1) (e ) Public task: ‘processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest’;

Article 6 (1) (a) We rely on consent when you:

  • request to be notified of updates and alerts including via our third-party engagement consultants
  • agree or request for your personal email address to be added to our contacts list so you can be contacted in regard to future consultations and engagement activities. In this case, we will record your personal email address to contact you and invite you to participate in our engagement activities.

You can opt-out at any time if you do not wish to be contacted, by emailing Traffic@hounslow.gov.uk to request that your name and contact details are deleted. 

If the information you provide us contains special category data, such as health, religious or ethnic information the legal basis we rely on to process is  

Article 9 – Substantial Public Interest with the conditions being:

  • 6. Statutory and government purposes
  • 8. Equality of opportunity or treatment

Why we need your information (purposes of processing):

The TTP team regularly consult and seek to engage with communities across the borough on a range of issues relating to our service, and we may need to collect your personal data for analysis purposes for a range of reasons set out in bullet points below. These essentially help to inform our decisions, with a view to improving the way we deliver statutory services.   

Quite often we will also need to communicate with you, to investigate any concerns or complaints you have raised about our services during our engagement and consultation, and as part of our continuous improvement to deliver better services.

  • Facilitate your participation in our consultation and engagement activities
  • Understand your views about a particular topic or Hounslow’s activity
  • Analyse consultation and engagement activity
  • Inform Hounslow’s future strategy, policy, service design and budget planning
  • Undertake equalities monitoring
  • Communicate information to you about engagement and consultation opportunities, and events and other initiatives, as well as the outcomes if you have requested to be kept informed.

Who your information may be shared with (internally and externally)

To meet our statutory obligations, we may at times need to share the information you provide us with other professionals or organisations such as

  • Law enforcement agencies in connection with any investigation to help prevent unlawful activity.
  • The Courts
  • Transport for London
  • Third Party consultants undertaking engagement on the Council’s behalf, such as ‘Project Centre’ (see ‘Our third-party research providers’ section below). Project Centre are part of Marston Holdings Ltd who work on behalf of local and central government, airports and the private sector across the UK, offering on-street parking services, enforcement, passenger transport, street and estate management, business process management and technical design consultancy services.
  • DVLA

We will only share your information with internal departments and other service providers, contractors and/or partner bodies where it is necessary:

  • to comply with a legal obligation
  • where permitted under the Data Protection law.
  • where the disclosure is necessary for the purposes of the prevention and/or detection of crime
  • where it is necessary to allow a third party working for or on behalf of the Council

We will strive to ensure that any personal data in our care will be kept safe and that where your information is disclosed to a third party, we will seek to ensure that the third party has sufficient systems and procedures in place to prevent the loss or damage of personal data.

We will not use your personal data for third party marketing purposes but if we do, we will first seek consent from you.

When we make contact, you will be able to ‘opt out’ from correspondence if you do not wish any further contact from us.  

Our third-party research providers

The TTP team will at times commission third-party consultants to undertake engagement activity, often on specific schemes either being proposed or existing, to capture feedback from our communities.

‘Project Centre’ are an independent consultancy. Their communications and engagement team provide a holistic and integrated consultancy service, and they bring strong experience of consultation / engagement in transport related projects.

Project Centre have been commissioned by London Borough of Hounslow to support and assist the TTP team with improving the scope and offer of our engagement activities. As such, Project Centre processes personal data on behalf of the TTP for this purpose; they act as its processor in GDPR terms.

Project Centre began working with the Consultation and Engagement team (within TTP) in Hounslow during January 2022. Project Centre are part of Marston Holdings Ltd who work on behalf of local and central government, airports and the private sector across the UK, offering on-street parking services, enforcement, passenger transport, street and estate management, business process management and technical design consultancy services.

You can find a copy of their Privacy Policy here: https://www.marstonholdings.co.uk/marston-holdings-privacy-notice/

 

How long we keep your information

For the purposes of engagement, contact emails and names where available, will be kept on our stakeholder database, which is a live document that will change and evolve over time as and when stakeholder details change. We will keep this information for as long as is necessary or until you inform us it is no longer valid, or until you opt out, at which point we will then dispose of your information in the most secure manner possible.

We will retain engagement information until our work on the subject matter of the consultation or engagement is complete.

We generally retain Survey Data which is personal data for no longer than 6 months after we have completed any quality control checks.  In some instances, data may be retained for longer periods where the processing purpose requires this.

We may anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

Data Matching and Auditing

We are required by law to protect the public funds we administer. We may use the information you provide to us for the prevention and detection of crime. We may also share this information with other bodies that are responsible for auditing or administering public funds including the Department for Work and Pensions, other local authorities, HM Revenue and Customers and the Police.

The council uses data matching as a way of processing large volumes of information. While this can be a useful way of detecting fraud, it also enables us to identify information that is inaccurate or out of date, helping us comply with Data Protection law, while improving service provision.

As part of the council’s fraud prevention and detection activities, the council participates in the National Fraud Initiative (NFI). The data matching exercise is run by the Cabinet Office. More information  is available online.

 

Transfers to third countries

All the information you provide us is held within the UK and European Economic Area

Your data protection rights

The rights available to you depend on our reason for processing your information. For further information about your data protection rights and how to make a request, please see ‘Your rights’

How do we protect and keep your information secure?

We take the protection of your personal data seriously whether it be electronic or paper records. Examples of our protective controls include:

  • Encryption, meaning that information is hidden so that it cannot be read without special knowledge (such as a password)
  • Verification processes in place to seek to validate and verify information
  • Controlling access to systems and networks allows us to stop people who are not allowed to view your personal information from getting access to it
  • Training for our staff allows us to make them aware of how to handle information and how and when to report when something goes wrong

Your right to make a complaint

The Council tries to meet the highest standards when collecting and using personal information. For this reason, we take any complaints we receive about this very seriously. We encourage people to bring it to our attention if they think that our collection or use of information is unfair, misleading or inappropriate.

If you want to make a complaint you can contact us on:

Complaints Team
London Borough of Hounslow
Hounslow House
7 Bath Road
TW3 3EB

Data Protection Officer

The Council’s Data Protection Officer can be contacted on:

InformationGovernance@hounslow.gov.uk
Information Governance Team
London Borough of Hounslow
Hounslow House,
7 Bath Road,
TW3 3EB

Information Commissioner’s Office

The Information Commissioner is the UK's independent body set up to uphold information rights.

If you would like to know more about your rights under the Data Protection law, and what you should expect, visit the Information Commissioner’s website: https://ico.org.uk/

If you have any concerns regarding any privacy practices or about exercising your Data Protection rights, you may contact the Information Commissioner’s Office:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Telephone: 0303 123 1113 or 01625 545 745

Email:  casework@ico.org.uk

A full list of what information we control and process and for what purposes is set out in our notification with the Information Commissioner's Register of Data Controllers. Our registration number is Z5761176.  You can view our registration on the Information Commissioner's website.

rating button